I was worried a month ago that with the dry weather earlier in the year the apples weren't swelling properly, but they've plumped up since then, and are holding nicely on the trees. There were a few lying on the ground, but only a few, not windfalls but hit-by-lawnmower-falls. Since the blackberries are ripening in the lane, I thought I might as well make blackberry and apple crumble. To be on the safe side I cook apple crumble in two stages, baking the filling until it's just soft, and then adding the topping. Some apples explode to a fluff after ten minutes in the oven, and then it's a redundant precaution, but today's lot took nearly an hour to soften. It is such a disappointment when crumble topping browns and the fruit underneath is still crunchy. The end result can only be a sad compromise, of overcooked but just-edible brown crumbs over a partially raw base. We don't normally eat puddings, as both of us are inclined to stoutness given half a chance, so we had the crumble for lunch. Just the crumble. We're having lamb curry for supper, so it will almost average out to a balanced diet over the course of the day, though I suppose the health police would say we should not eat crumble topping at all. Sometimes I stir porridge oats in, for a bit of added texture, but this was the first crumble of autumn and I stuck to the purist version.
I picked some extra blackberries for the chickens, thinking they would like them, but they looked at my offering of fruit very suspiciously. Sometimes I think they might be spoiled, what with their daily dose of Value sultanas. I am sure chickens are supposed to be pleased when their owners go to the trouble of picking fresh blackberries for them.
The rain arrived mid-afternoon. We'd been checking its progress on the rain radar through the morning, and it started bang on schedule. In expectation of its arrival I'd spent another morning tidying the front garden, only taking a trowel and secateurs with me, instead of scattering the full range of tools across the back lawn or going as far as the meadow. The Systems Administrator popped out to tell me when I had ten minutes left to go. Rain ruled out painting the outside of the house, while it was not raining in Taunton, so the S.A. was stuck with the prospect of watching the finals of the 40:40 cricket all day, such hardship.
The yellow evening primroses I grew from seed collected on Dunwich beach, thinking that if they grew there they should grow in my front garden, have seeded themselves lavishly, and I think we're well on the way to having a naturalised colony. The gravel garden in the centre of the turning circle is divided into two parts, by a breakwater made out of timber reclaimed from old sea defences, and the evening primroses started off on the south side, that is themed Beach. They have seeded themselves there, but more seedlings seem to have come up on the other side of the barrier, where the theme is Italian Garden and I have a lot of small bulbs planted. They particularly like the gaps between the paving. The relaxed atmosphere of planting styles that incorporate self-seeding is largely illusory, since avoiding a monoculture of evening primrose, or Verbena bonariensis, or whatever it is, depends on a fair degree of vigilance and selection on the part of the gardener. I should be able to move some of the smaller plants, and some of the others may have to go in the compost bin. In the back garden new Verbena bonariensis are appearing from the ample seedbank to replace those lost last winter, as I hoped they would, and I've been potting up some young plants from places where I don't want them, like the middle of a path, to use elsewhere. I did this last week just before the hot spell and they wilted pathetically, but I'm hoping that today's wet weather will give them time to recover. Each one got a little scoop of Rootgrow in its pot to help restore its traumatised root system. I haven't tried using it in pots before, but since the way it works is to link to the plant's own roots to form a larger water collecting system, it ought to help.
I think the sea campion is seeding itself about, but the pea plant that I thought was my one surviving sea pea turned out to be yet another everlasting pea, Lathyrus latifolius, which must have grown from a seed that fell down as the remains of a plant were being carted off to the bonfire. The perennial everlasting pea is a useful plant, flowering over a long period and as tough as door-nails. Its pink flowers are cheerful, though scentless, and after dying down to ground level in winter, it makes branches up to a couple of metres long, that will drape themselves over spring flowering shrubs and jazz them up for the late summer. I like it, but have to admit that it does seed itself prodigously, and that the seedlings are hard to dig out unless you get them young. I have a lot of it in the back garden, probably slightly more than I really want, and I don't want it in the front garden as well. It's a shame about the sea pea, but it doesn't seem to have relished life in our front garden. You win some, you lose some.
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